Mélanie Pérez
“Oppressed, doesn’t show her ankles, only reads the Bible, doesn’t get angry,” lists Amelia Dilworth ’23 when I ask her about popular perspectives on Christian women. Amelia, who grew up in a Christian family and is now a campus ministry intern, laughs as her chunky gold earrings swing. Amelia laughs because she, with her punchy one-liners and critical thinking skills, is the last person to be considered boring.
As a woman of color who grew up Christian and chose to follow the faith in college, I have always wondered why I turned to religion at Yale, of all places. On our left-leaning, cis-heteropatriarchy-breaking campus, Christian women’s voices don’t necessarily seem savory. The anti-abortion, anti-vaccination, and Trumpism movements represent some of the movements that Christian women are associated with nationally, to name a few. As a result, I’ve always been curious about how Christian women practice their faith amidst this noise: a current cultural moment where the media portrays them as problematic typologies and a college campus that places immense pressures on students for them to succeed socially and academically.
According to a Chaplain’s Office survey analyzing religious affiliations in the 2010s, Christians represent the largest religious group on campus. However, from my own observations, Christian women also seem to be the most dispersed, not only physically, but also ideologically.
What I discover in my interviews with Christian women in various spaces is the immense diversity of opinions on basic issues like modesty, relationships, and careers. But they all share a commitment to pursuing what God has called them to do on campus. This unwavering love for God and for others is what grounds them all – and what ultimately sets them apart.
Yale, Christianity and Women
Christianity indelibly shaped Yale’s foundation, and its traces persist and impact the experiences of all women and gender minorities today.
In 1701, Congregationalist clergymen from the Connecticut colony founded the Collegiate School in Branford, Connecticut. The third oldest institution of higher learning trained men in theology, classical languages, leadership and later in the sciences and humanities. It was from this highly masculine and Christian foundation that a new Yale began to form. As early as 1892, women enrolled in graduate programs, and in 1973, undergraduate women began to fill seats that only male ministers could once fill.
To some extent, the historical exclusion of women from higher education can be attributed to Christian perspectives on motherhood and work in the home – or at least to subjective interpretations of the Bible. In “The Making of Biblical Womanhood,” historian Beth Allison Barr uncovers the sociopolitical construction of biblical womanhood: the belief that God designed women to stay at home and become virtuous wives and mothers. This idea has permeated North American Christianity and emerged in particular social contexts throughout history. Hannah Turner ’24, who grew up in a Christian family and now leads a women’s Bible study group, calls it “bad exegesis.”
“The idea of wearing gingham aprons and baking muffins every day is unbiblical,” Dilworth points out. “It was heavily popularized by the industrial revolution, as well as the 1960s, during the second wave of feminism. Men went out and worked and women had to take care of the house, which is a concept based on race and class.
Although the arrival of women came relatively early, the transition to coeducation was not easy and to some extent shapes the archetype of today’s female students. The culture of higher education has generated a hyperfixation of professional or academic work and a devaluation of all other forms of work; it was normal for men, but women had to assimilate to this environment. Proving their place in the Academy, women invested all their attention in the school and also began to criticize everything that did not relate to it.
This feeling persists today.
“College is still a predominantly male world,” Dilworth theorizes. “The university has everyone working in a culture where it’s impossible to be a housewife and have a job. This teaches us to prepare all our food for ourselves; Yale students must not perform reproductive labor. The only thing to do is take out the trash. And maybe not even.
Lily Lawler ’23, who is doing the same internship as Dilworth, explains the rise of the girlboss archetype. “To succeed in the world, one must renounce everything feminine. Everything feminine is bad. You must be a girlboss.
Alongside girlbosses, the ideal student is also a cool girl. Turner explains, “She’s at the top of her clubs, goes to the gym every day, shows up to every social event, eats healthy…she’s constantly getting something out of her body.” » I think it’s a feeling that most female students can relate to: the constant need to produce something, whether it’s a tangible product or an intangible feeling for others.
Overall, this set of religious and political factors creates the ideal student archetypes that many Christian women fight against.
Freed from…
Christian womanhood on campus develops within the framework of this secular ideal.
“For Christian women, the connection between value and success is broken,” says Lawler. “You can be a hustler and work hard, but your worth is no longer tied to that. You are willing to sacrifice some things regarding your career to care about your well-being and that of others. A Yale Christian knows that the most important thing about being here is not me or Yale but what God is doing through me at Yale.
Turner extends this idea of humility: the ideal Christian woman “makes the desires of Jesus her desires.” Why would a woman cede her free will to the desires of a man who lived 2,000 years ago? By seeking the desires of Christ, doesn’t a woman lose her freedom to make her own choices?
From a non-Christian perspective, Christianity is based on the practice of putting men first: women are expected to put Jesus’ desires ahead of their own. But for the Christian woman, this does not mean a lack of free will. Understanding what constrains Christian women to the discipline of faith requires a redefinition of freedom, perhaps unconventional in the eyes of secularists.
The women I spoke to spoke of the distinct Christian perspective on freedom.
“The central difference is what freedom means to you,” says Turner. “Secular freedom is having infinite choice, while Christian freedom is being free of something – whether sin, punishment, guilt or anxiety.
When I asked a similar question to Kat Matsukawa ’23, who is also a campus ministry intern, she added something very similar: “Believers have a very different understanding of freedom. Secularists can look at my life and say that depending on how you live, you are not free. Outside, I have a lot more limits. But I know that I am free from sin and shame.
Here, Matsukawa and Turner present the paradox of Christian freedom. By standing up for what their faith calls them to do rather than what the world, men, capitalism, and what they ask themselves to do, a woman experiences true freedom. For them, it is the only way through which women can free themselves from the oppressive past and the traps of ideal students.
It is important to note, however, that Christian women are not bound by a set of universal rules.
One of the central areas in which subjective rules are formed is modesty. Many women I’ve spoken to have different relationships with clothes. Some girls wore bikinis while others stuck to one-piece suits. Some found it acceptable to kiss before marriage because it did not provoke sexual thoughts in them, while others only kissed at the altar.
“I always wear crop tops and yoga pants,” describes Hannah. “Modesty is not a moral standard, but something we are now discovering in this broken world. It’s not universal.
What matters seems to be the intention. Do you dress to provoke sexual desires and commodify your body, or to honor God and express yourself creatively?
Another area where rules are made is relationships. While Christian women are often seen as obsessed with their husbands, the women I spoke to felt comfortable being single.
One sophomore, who chose to remain anonymous, pointed out a difference in the way her non-Christian and Christian friends talk about dating. “My friends are all boy crazy, whereas conversations about guys in Christian spaces are much more intentional and also less frequent.” The sophomore could only name one conversation she had about men, when her friend brought up the premarital counseling she and her fiancé were undergoing. She said most of her conversations with other Christian students pass the Bechdel test.
Remarks from an anonymous junior were similar. Although she grew up going to church, it wasn’t until college that she learned to let God direct her relationships, which made her more intentional in her interactions with non-Christian men . Christianity ultimately encouraged her to view singleness as a gift from God, a time in her life where she can focus on her faith and what God has called her to do as a student and in her career .
Finally, Christian women at Yale follow God’s calling throughout their careers. Some girls are called to ministry, others become full-time mothers or CEOs. This is not an I-can-be-Barbie fantasy, but a fantasy dictated by God’s sovereign plan and the gifts God has given them.
“We live in a culture that celebrates new things,” Kat muses. “For Christians, we’re not trying to reinvent the wheel, we’re just trying to be obedient to Jesus. Sometimes this means He is calling us on a path already well traveled. Do we have the humility to accept this?
There are still endless topics to discuss and perspectives to illuminate, particularly those of gender minorities in Christian spaces, which deserve another decade of articles. But I would like to make a broader argument that it may be because of, not despite, the disjunctures between religion and academia that attract women to the faith.
